14th September, 2015
Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Columnist with Vanguard Newspapers, Ms Donu Kogbara, who regained her freedom on Friday night after spending about two weeks in the hands of kidnappers said they told her that they were on a war of vengeance against rich men and women who they claimed looted the nation’s wealth and left them out.
Kogbara, who narrated her ordeal in a brief chat with a few Journalists, said she was holed up in a creek without movement for two weeks.
She regretted that despite using greater part of her career fighting for the rights of the youths of the Niger Delta region she became a target of kidnappers who are mainly youths.
“Keeping me in one place for two weeks tends to paralyse me a little bit. I am very stiff and I am also very sad that it happened because I spent larger part of my career fighting for the Niger Delta youths and saying that they deserved a better deal it upsets me that I became their target because they said they were waging a war against the rich men and women who have stolen from government treasury and the oppressors in the society,” said Kogbara.
She expressed gratitude to colleagues and all well meaning Nigerians who protested her kidnap and pressed for her release.
Dakuku Peterside, the All Progressives Congress, APC, Governorship candidate in the 11 April election in Rivers State, who was one of the early callers to Kogbara’s residence, enjoined security agents to redouble their efforts in securing the lives and properties of the residents of the state.
Also, Sam Amuka, the Publisher of Vanguard Newspapers visited Kogbara on behalf of Vanguard Group of Newspapers in her residence.
Meanwhile, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, expressed happiness that the columnist regained her freedom but condemned the ill-treatment meted out to her.